UCLH are now able to deliver high quality training to their workforce using a platform that is engaging, easy to use and available anywhere, anytime.

What UCLH Needed

University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH) wanted an e-learning platform that was easy to use, accessible from anywhere, and that allowed them to provide high quality compliance training and education to employees. It needed to provide support, education and training for trainee junior doctors and nurses, as well as all other existing staff. This meant a system that could cope with 10,000 users, from varying nationalities, and with varying levels of IT skills. They also wanted to import all of their completion records (around 100,000) into their new system.

The existing system at UCLH had been in use for two years but had multiple issues:

training records across multiple systems

poor quality data which led to reduced confidence

slow and out of date reporting

fire fighting - constantly on the back foot

users were reticent to engage with broken processes

According to the Head of Workforce Development in 2014, something needed to change.

Our existing e-learning system wasn’t fit for purpose. It was a convoluted system of multiple password access, the user experience was poor and could only be accessed within the Trust.

We value excellent education very highly, so we wanted to provide our staff with the best user experience. Webanywhere were able to provide this easily and quickly, and could make it look and feel how we wanted.

Claire London

The Webanywhere Solution

Webanywhere created a bespoke Totara LMS that was developed to provide training for new junior doctors and nurses. This enables them to complete training online when required. Configuration of audience management and hierarchy setup was also provided, creating a platform that was ready to use by staff. Furthermore as the LMS is cloud hosted, it can be accessed anywhere and provide collaboration between employees. This in itself makes a huge difference, as previously, staff could only access their CMS internally.

Totara is an open source platform; it’s a custom distribution of Moodle ( the world's most popular learning management platform) but targetted at the corporate sector. This means that improvements to the system are continually being developed. In addition, it means that although costs are lower, the quality is never compromised.

Content can also be uploaded quickly and easily.

We have been able to create high quality content with our internal experts. The learning content was developed by our staff, for our staff. This quality couldn’t have been purchased off the shelf.

Claire London

To ensure the system was up and running from the start, Webanywhere provided a day of onsite training. Since then Webanywhere have continued support with phone calls and online sessions, to aid UCLH during their setup.

Initially the pilot was launched with a cohort of junior doctors within the Trust. Prior to joining the Trust, these doctors were given access to the platform to complete their training. Staff were continuously asking when they could access the system - and after the pilot period was a success, this has now happened.

As part of the UCLH onboarding process, new recruits can now access mandatory training before joining. This ensures staff are safe and ready to be effective as soon as they join the Trust. A by-product of this is improvement in the induction process at UCLH.

UCLH can now deliver high quality training and education to their staff and trainees, using a platform that is engaging, easy to use and available from anywhere.

This system was simple to implement and supports us as an organisation. We now have a greater level of assurance about compliance. The simplicity for our staff supports our onboarding process as well as linking to core Trust values, engaging with new staff as they join us. This system allows us to spend less time on mandatory inductions and more time on things like core Trust values.

Claire London

Key benefits

all e-learning and training records are in the LMS

dashboard for all users and reporting dashboard for managers

real-time data for managers

Red-amber-green (RAG) status to see at a glance which modules have been completed

easy implementation and delivery - the learning management system was easy to deliver and easy to implement

provides a personalised learning experience, which creates a more engaging and relevant platform for each individual learner

staff can complete training anywhere, anytime

The LMS system is the only system I have used that accommodates both extensive real time training compliance data and a user friendly interface for introducing training to new staff in our organisation. David Chal – Induction and Core Skills Team Leader